"...Smack in the Middle of May..."

.
Nine years ago Joe asked me to marry him. I want to write this down for my children so they know the story of how daddy asked mommy to marry him.

It was a beautiful HOT Memorial Day weekend. When I say hot, I meant H*O*T. We were at camp and sometimes on these types of days we "barge", which is having all the boats go out in the middle of the lake and tie up together and just hang out. People swim, eat, laugh, drink. So on this particular day I became more than annoyed at some point, not mad, but like "what the heck is going ON??? Why are we not barging??" and every time I turned around someone had a different excuse as to the delay. Finally we went. My whole side of the family was there along with our whole "camp family".

While we were out in the middle of the lake the song Pocketfull of Miracles by Frank Sinatra started playing and I watched as Joe got up and started dancing, which was nothing new. However all of a sudden I realized that there was something different about how he was looking at me...... and that he was dancing toward me. When he got to me he pulled out a ring and opened the box and asked me to marry him. I said yes, the champagne came out of nowhere, and corks flew. At some point before we went out to barge Joe had made huge letters and put them on the roof of the camp that said Say Yes.

What a great guy.

For the next eight years, every time we heard that song Joe would come to me and hold my hand or kiss me.


I spent this past weekend at camp which is what Joe and I have done every year for the past 10+ years. I missed him a lot. On this particular weekend there is a lot of work to be done to get ready for summer. Of course Joe was always in the middle of it. At one point over the weekend I looked down at the lake from my bedroom window and saw my father perfecting this year's installation of the dock. He was in the water, alone, and I stood there staring at what I did not see. Joe. He should have been there.